aedens wrote:H, what do you feel about TBT until 2013 closes for a percentage term play?
Short answer is I think the meat of the move is 1-2 years out. And I'm not even sure the bears will get anything for another year.
aedens wrote:NYSE volume has trended exponentially lower for over 8 years and today's volume was still a 3-Sigma outlier to the downside.
I'm noticing futures volume is getting thinner, just over the past few days.
aedens wrote:It was a coordinated smack.
I see a lot of what I think is hedging going on. The appearance of large funds locking in profits. That's what my read of the order book indicates. There are a lot of days when I watch the tape (my order book) very closely. I need to blink, though. For those who wonder what I am talking about, my software has an order book which contains all the orders in the futures markets several layers deep on each side, and as each order is executed, the volume is shown. It's not unusual to have this information and anyone can get it for free, though it doesn't seem very many are aware of this.
When there are large volumes of orders available at a price level, I occasionally see sellers step up and take them all. If you have a $10 billion fund and want to hedge it 20% with the e-minis, that's 30,000 lots. So if there are 3,000 lots hanging out at a good price near the close, the manager may want to take most of it, and I have seen 3,000 lot blocks disappear all at once. It may have happened yet again today but I wasn't watching closely. I don't know this, but I suppose if a couple funds put a transaction like that through, the algos might hop on the bandwagon, thinking more might be coming. It's something people can't know, but if you've got an Internet finance site, it can be fun to create some intrigue and keep people coming back to the site. With a subject as dull and boring as hedging in a market with 2.9 million in open interest, and macro funds folding, something has to be written to keep it fresh and exciting.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.